Chapter 98: Chapter. 83: Bodily Enhancement

The skill selection was, well I didn’t really know what to make of it or what I needed. I just picked out the ones that seemed to be the objectively best ones. Flashbang was a great skill that had helped me out in certain situations, but I also needed more. This time around, I skipped over Knowledge entries. At least for now, they weren’t necessary, moreover I was unsure if they would actually help me learn new plants, or if I would still need to experience them myself to some extent. The Man-eating tendrils were… I was familiar with them. A sigh left me as I turned to my final skill selection.

[Skill ⁠— Covert Lethality (Rare Passive) ⁠— If the enemy is unaware if your presence, gain 50% bonus damage for the next three seconds after initiating an attack.]

[Skill ⁠— Heat Sense (Rare) ⁠— You are able to sense heat sources via mana enhancement.]

[Skill ⁠— Mana Sense (Rare Passive) ⁠— You are able to sense mana.]

[Skill ⁠— Chain Frenzy (Rare Passive) ⁠— After every kill gain a 5% temporary boost to your attributes up to a total of 15% with a duration of two minutes, each kill refreshes duration.]

[Skill ⁠— Firing up (Rare Passive) ⁠— For every five minutes in battle gain a 5% temporary boost to your attributes for a total of 15% bonus. Disengaging a battle for more than a minute will reset the passive.]

[Skill ⁠— Bone Breaker (Rare Passive) ⁠— Cracker of Skulls. Bones are 20% more susceptible to breakage when you attack them.]

[Skill ⁠— Three-Marked (Rare Passive) ⁠— Landing three consecutive attacks will create for a Mark of Death for a brief window, once the time has passed the skill won’t trigger for a minute. Mark of Death: Any damage received by its bearer will automatically make them suffer a Critical Hit.]

I had decided to discard a couple of the old skills, in the end the only one that remained was Covert Lethality, which seemed good to me. That said, I still had handpicked most of the ones that gave some form of damage bonus without much compromise, save both Sense skills, which I had picked before I took notice of the better ones.

In the end, both Heat Sense and Mana Sense were easy to dismiss. Heat Sense seemed a bit neat, but Penumbral Sense already helped a lot with sensing things. I was pretty sure the skill had sensed the human spying on my conversation with the emperor too⁠— I paused for the briefest second to ponder what the other people from the Skirmish were doing in the New World before shrugging, next I turned to the rest of the skills.

Firing Up and Chain Frenzy both sounded great on paper, but one of them counted on me not dying and the other one counted on me bringing constant carnage. Which was possible against E rank monsters, not so much D rank ones. And if that was the case, then why did I even need bonus attributes against low rank monsters? I moved onto Firing Up which could be useful if I somehow managed to stay engaged in battle.

Truth be told, unless I found a way to circumvent the battle requirement, I would most likely die before the fifteen minutes were up against a higher level Guardian⁠— if I were to find myself in a situation to use the skill, then I would be dead with or without skill. Needless to say, I was passing up on that one as well.

Bone Breaker, Covert Lethality, Three-Marked. All three of them seemed good to me, though Bone Breaker might be bad if the target didn’t have bones. Also Covert Lethality would only be useful once per battle, so it had that drawback as well.

I paused, realizing that between all of the skills only one of them didn’t seem to have some sort of drawback. My eyes wandered to its description once more. No drawback was a bit of generous wording, but it didn’t have much of a compromise.

[Three-Marked (Rare Passive) ⁠— Landing three consecutive attacks will create for a Mark of Death for a brief window, once the time has passed the skill won’t trigger for a minute. Mark of Death: Any damage received by its bearer will automatically make them suffer a Critical Hit.]

To be honest, the skill seemed a bit too good to be true, if it triggered once every minute and would guarantee me a Critical Hit, then… I paused for a moment, I didn’t really understand what a Critical Hit was⁠—

“Glim, what’s a Critical Hit?” I asked suddenly.

It bobbed. [Well, as its name implies it's something critical and that will hurt quite bad. A critical hit for you⁠— hmm. Remember that one time that you slid into the wall? Perhaps that could be counted as a Critical Hit since you nearly fainted. A Critical Hit for you would be a grievous injury that would threaten your life, or a kind of injury that would cripple you during battle. Needless to say something like DeathShot is not a truly useless Feat.]

I nodded, that certainly explained things. The Skill still sounded a bit too good to be true, though I supposed it depended on what it meant by consecutive attacks. Landing three arrows back to back? Sure that was a bit steep but doable, however⁠— my mind wandered for a second as I came up with something a bit weird.

What if an Explosive Shot⁠— What if any instance of hurting my target were to count as a consecutive attack? Didn’t that mean that something like Lyco Puff spores would just guarantee a Mark of Death to appear every minute? Wouldn’t that be quite⁠ amazing? I smiled as I selected the skill.

[Skill Learned ⁠— Three-Marked (Rare Passive) ⁠— Landing three consecutive attacks will create for a Mark of Death for a brief window, once the time has passed the skill won’t trigger for a minute. Mark of Death: Any damage received by its bearer will automatically make them suffer a Critical Hit.]

And that was that. After the fight with the Lower Moon, I had realized that I needed more damage. Even if I had relatively easily killed the level 28 Moonfang outside it wasn’t quite enough. I sighed for a bit, I felt excited, but I had been close to death so many times. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant thing.

I opened my status and wondered where to distribute my two points. Perception was still unnecessary in my eyes, Agility seemed a bit pointless, Endurance was unneeded this far, and I wasn’t even doing contests of Strength with most monsters. In the end, I decided to place both points into Wisdom. Bringing it from 78 to 80..

Name: Blair | Level: 32

Race: ??? (E-Grade)

Feats: [Lone Survivor], [Bottomless Ambition], [Champion Of Champions], [Champion Of Illusion], [Pest Control], [DeathShot], [Five of a Kind], [Pacifist of the New World]

Prophecy: Scarlet Bloom (D-Grade)

Basic skills: Universal Understanding (NaN),

Universal Inquiry (NaN)

Free attribute points: 0

VIG: 82 | END: 42 |

STR: 40 | AGI: 51 |

PER: 43 | WIS: 80 |

Skills: [Proficient Archery (Uncommon Passive)], [Explosive Shot (Rare)], [Power Draw (Uncommon)], [Penumbral Sense (Rare Passive)], [Frictionless Slide (Rare Passive)], [Burrowing Shot (Rare)], [Flashbang (Rare)], [Mana Manipulation (Epic Passive)], [Three-Marked (Rare Passive)]

Prophecy Skills: [Seed Manipulation (Rare Passive)], [All Dark (Uncommon Passive)]

Attunements: Dark plants (II)

Prime Currency: 0

A sigh finally left me. I still felt a bit lost regarding things, even though I had rediscovered a new kind of plant I still felt lost. I still had no idea how Treants were made, and I doubted Knowledge entries would help me at all. I also did not understand how I was supposed to upgrade my Prophecy. I turned towards Glim, who moved sideways away from my gaze, clearly indicating that he couldn’t answer, then ultimately my eyes wandered to Sun.

“Sun, how does one advance their calling?”

His eyes opened briefly. “Advance? Well, you simply keep trying to improve, and once you feel like you have truly embraced the calling it will happen,” he mused before continuing. “It’s not something you should feel concerned about anyway.”

I sighed, he was slightly right on that. I was still at a low level, and probably had no urgency to advance it just yet. I pondered for a second about my situation, about the things that I should be doing before turning to Sun once more.

“Are there any Moonfangs nearby, there is a Skill I would like to try…” I said somewhat embarrassingly. I did feel excited for trying what Mark of Death actually did, and how a Critical Hit actually looked like.

After a brief second of silence, Sun finally opened his eyes and lazily stood up. He made no sound as he simply circled around me, looking at me deeply with his crimson irises before sitting in front of the entrance.

“Blair, you won’t be going anywhere.” He shook his head, meanwhile I frowned from the sudden command. He continued. “Not in this awful state you are in.”

I became even more upset. “Awful state? I am perfectly fine!”

You are reading story Blair: A Non-Human LitRPG at novel35.com

“Are you?” He asked inquisitively.

I shifted under his gaze somewhat awkwardly. “If it’s about my memories I feel fine, it’s not as if I will suddenly remember every single thing I have apprehension towards⁠—”

“That’s now what I mean,” Sun interrupted. “I saw your fight, I saw your usage of mana. And even though it wasn’t completely necessary, I cannot help but ask, why didn’t you enhance your muscles?”

I frowned. “Enhance my muscles?”

“Moreover, your weapon does not have any kind of weak enhancement either. A permanent one, but I can overlook that. However, the fact that you don’t enhance your body with mana makes me think you have some sort of internal bleeding preventing you from doing so. Maybe at your mana core.”

“Mana core?”

“The thing that stores your mana in the first place.” He shook his head. “Not important. My point being is that you are in no position to survive for long until you recover.”

I frowned and looked over my body. “But I am just fine, I have almost all of my mana too!”

Sun shook his head once more. “Then why don’t you enhance your muscles or a part of your body to prove it.”

Pondering for a second I couldn’t help but feel as if he was playing some sort of sick joke on me. “How am I supposed to do that? How does one even do that in the first place?”

I saw his eyes visibly widen as he looked at my expression. “Blair, let me ask you a question. When you saw a Moonfang, or a Bloodfang⁠— when they let out mana from their body, what do you think it is?”

“A skill?” I asked as if it were obvious.

“No, that’s just the most basic form of mana enhancement.” He sighed. “It’s inefficient, but you are also telling me you cannot do that?”

I stared for a second. “No?”

“Then there is even less reason to let you go. Let’s teach you quickly, since you are already relatively strong it should be easy to pick up. And then, I can guide you to a small pack of Moonfangs.” He grinned showing his fangs. “I am looking forward to carnage.”

I shifted, unsure about what was happening as his crimson eyes landed on me.

◇ ◇ ◇

What followed was a lot of pain, and the occasional barked command to drink a potion. First came overwhelming my mana through my skin, then coating⁠— then pushing outwards to permeate my muscles. It was painful and would cause them to twitch and spasm. Each muscle individually could be enhanced but I didn’t get it⁠— I nearly snapped my finger by enhancing the wrong thing.

If my mana was pushed into my skin with the intent to enhance it, my skin would harden⁠— though it wasn’t what he wanted as neat as I found it. It would always seemingly phase through my muscles, since the distinction between where my mana was inside of me and my muscles was nearly non-existent, at least that’s how it felt.

Sun continued to command me and make suggestions. All you need is to push your mana all at once through your body, of course, it’s better to start small⁠— say your hand, his words echoed through my mind as time passed.

It took a while, but after what felt like hours I made some progress and managed to crush a small rock. Sun had said it would take a couple of hours, and maybe he was right, but I struggled, just like my Prophecy, there were too many things to do at once⁠—

That’s when his words clicked on me.

I just needed to push it all⁠— all out of my body at once.

I welled my mana at my center and decided to evenly spread it from the neck down. Sun observed carefully with a small nod. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing, but my mana manipulation allowed me to do it with a bit of ease. Soon, I felt warmth coarse through the entirety of my body, but I didn’t feel physically enhanced⁠—

I relished the feeling for a moment, before I moved to intent. All out⁠— Explode. I felt it coalesce and run through my arms, through my very being as it coursed with explosive power. I smiled as green mist formed all around me.

“Great job, though it’s uncontrolled, so I suggest to stop that⁠.”

Uncontrolled? I paused for the briefest second as my vision went blurry. In a hurry, I withdrew all of the mana that I could, though almost all of it left my body right at that instant and I nearly collapsed on the ground throwing up. I struggled to stand up as sweat ran down my body, I felt as if I had run for hours on end without rest. My muscles felt overly sore, and just overall tired.

Is that how enhancing one’s body works? I nearly snorted, but I felt nauseous. Is the power even worth it?

“Great job, Blair. Being honest with you, I expected you to take well over a day and multiple sessions.” Sun said as he laid down. “You’re making me proud of being your pack-leader.”

I humphed hearing the unnecessary compliment, but it did make me feel more accomplished. I sighed as I pondered for a second.

All it takes is to control the output…

◇ ◇ ◇

I rested, and readied myself to do it once more.

“Slowly, but steady. Like a flame,” Sun, advised.

I nodded, and slowly began to release my mana as I felt something⁠— a lingering feeling telling me how much to let go of. At that moment, I felt my ring shake as the bead inside trembled, Glim shivered, and I felt my mana boom.

[You have experienced a Revelation.]

Verdant mist began to pool from my body, and I felt⁠— amazing.

[Skill Learned ⁠— Frenzy (Rare) ⁠— Enhance your entire body with your mana, granting you a 15% temporary boost to all your attributes. Warning: High mana consumption, use with caution.]

I spaced out a bit as Sun laughed. “Good, good. You truly are talented!”

A Revelation now? I spaced out for a second as Glim interrupted my thoughts.

[Blair, you might want to pick up that call!]

I felt my finger shake once more. Right… I didn’t know if it was Elasia or The Illusionist but I took out the communication bead. It was trembling ever so slightly as a weird mana flooded it. I felt my excitement and confusion go down very slowly as I took deep breaths. A Revelation could happen whenever The System felt like it, it was just a coincidence that the bead happened to buzz.

I sighed as I grabbed the bead and answered. Static came, and then came Elasia’s voice.

“Blair, a Fate has been decided for you.”